Early Indian Historiography :

A Conspiracy Bypothesis’
BURTONSTEIN
Universify of Hawaii, U.S. A .

The question I raise for discussion here is why Indians of the

ancient and medieval periods did not address themselves seriously
to the critical study of their past ? This question has been raised
many times before by historians and others, and, notwithstanding
the argument presented here, it will be posed again in the future.
Before entering upon a necessary clarification of some of the
elements of the question, defense of the query itself may be neces-
sary ;for this question can be answered by another : History ? Who
needs it ? The counter question is not meant to be frivolous, for not
all would agree that the study of history requires no justification, that
it is somehow natural to literate men, hence why not Indians or that
the study of a society’s past by its members has such obvious
interest and utility as to require no justification. History-a critical
understanding of the past-is, of course, neither “natural” nor neces-
sary. However, in the case of India, exploration of the question
along the lines I have suggested serves to underscore certain aspects
of Indian society and culture which are receiving notice from
historians.
There are, in fact, several reasons for raising the question. One is
that given the rich and creative intellectual tradition of early India-
which needs hardly be elucidated-it is striking that historical
thought and scholarship should not have been represented in some
greater measure. Another reason is that a good deal of nonsense
has been written based upon the absence or deficiency of an early

1, This argument was published in brief form as part of the proceedings of a

seminar convened in 1961 by the Institute of Traditional Cultures, Madras, directed
by I(.A. Nilakanta Sastri. The seminar was entitled, “Historiography :India and
the West ;” it was reported in Bulletin ofthe Institute of Traditional Cultures, Part 11,
1962 (Madras :University of Madras, 1962), pp. 253-308.

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42 BURTON STEIN

Indian historiographical tradition. A presumed “timelessness” of the

Indian mind has often been posited by some Europeans and Indians
attempting to explain or justify particular world-views or ideological
aberrations in terms of their understanding of early Indian society
and culture, including its lack of a sound historiographical tradition.
Finally, the question arises as a matter of craft concern in the mind
of the historian of India, even those of us who are not specialists
in ancient India, because, unlike students of other ancient, literate
and continuing civilizations, we find almost no historically informed
views of the past among the literary remains of the ancient Indian
past. We are, thus, inexplicably, denied a sense of contact with a
kindred intellectual activity enjoyed by scholars of ancient China,
the classical European world, and Islam.
Answers to the question of why India lacked a significant historio-
graphical tradition in ancient times vary according to the sense in
which the term “history” is used, To none would the relatively
exacting standards of historical plausibility which exist today
obtain as a criterion for evaluating alleged works of history of
a millenium or even two centuries ago. And only a few of those
who seek the “soul of India” would argue that ancient Indians had
no “sense of history”. We may dismiss the latter view with its
conception of an Indian mind quirked by an inability or unwilling-
ness to cognize time. Between these two positions is a wide range
of intellectual productions which have been called “history.” In
two recent and important publications, some of the relevant issues
bearing upon the question are considered, and the views expressed
merit attention because in both there is the assertion that there was
an historiographical tradition worthy of the name in ancient
Sanskrit literature. The editor of one of the works, Historians of
India, Pakistan and Profeesor C . H. Philips, correctly
pointed out that the essays of the volume should dispose of the
notion that the peoples of early India had “no sense of history.”
However, there are no very cogent explanations offered for why the
ancient Indian “sense of history” was successfully expressed in only
one major, and rather solitary, work, the Kashmir Chronicle of

2. In the series, Historical Writings on the Peoples of Asia (London :Oxford

University Press, 1961), p. 4.

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 EARLY INDIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY : A CONSPIRACY HYPOTHESIS 43
Kalhzna. In the second work, V. S . Pathak’s Ancient Historians of
India :A Studv in Historical Biographies,’ the claim is advanced that
the charita works analyzed were valid historical works, not essen-
tially fantasy, eulogy, or entertainment. Yet, the author demons-
trates with elegance and erudition how these works, claimed as
historical, followed the canons of Sanskrit poetics meticulously and
utilized few factual details of the lives of the protagnoists beyond
those required to identify them unambiguously. The charita examin-
ed by Pathak and other classes of Sanskrit literature provide clear
evidence to support the view that ancient Indians sought in various
literary ways to deal with their pasts.
How this was done is the subject of a major essay in the Philips
volume by R. C. M a j ~ r n d a r . ~Of the various classes of historically
relevant Sanskrit language materials, the puranas are most impor-
tant. Literary conventions divide this largest single class of Sanskrit
writings into eighteen major works and an equal number of minor
ones (Upupur&as). I t is not bulk alone which gives this class of
Sanskrit literature its significance for the historian : no other seg-
ment of ancient Sanskrit comes closer to what might be “historical.”
The importance of the puranas was noted by Kautalya in the
Artha&fra, where purana is regarded as “Itih&-veda” and second
in importance only to the four Vedas. The term “itihka,” which
has come to mean history, is quite comprehensive in the Artha&stra,
for it comprehends purzna and, aniong other things, dharm&sfra
and artha&srru. These constituent elements of Kautalya’s idea of
itihasa were, in later times, separated inlo independent bodies of
knowledge with i f i h k a being characteristically joined to purana.
Itihasa-purana, even as a separate body of knowledge, lost little of
its older comprehensive character, and, for the historian, only one
of the subjects dealt with is of central importance, namely, the
genealogies of royal dynasties (vam&ucharitu). Moreover, the

3. (New York :Asia Publishing House, 1966).

4. The essay is entitled, “Ideas of History in Sanskrit Literature,” pp. 13-29.

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44 BURTON STEIN

itih&-pur&zm did not become fixed texts until perhaps the eighth
century when some of them became the basic authorities in matters
of conduct, religion, and philosophy. The pur&z, “ever old and
ever new,” was constantly subject to change by Sitas and M&adhas,
royal panegyrists and genealogists, who are tbe special custodians
of the purinn. In the hands of these specialists, dynastic lists
changed ;presumably there were reinterpretations as well as errors
in transmission. Yet, there is in the itihasa-purinas a core of royal
genealogical information which is maintained at least until the
eighth century or so when purinas are themselves fixed.
To the itih&a-pur&us, with their concern for genealogy and hero
stories, may be added other varieties of early literature which were
basically similar. These are genealogicaI traditions from various
parts of Northern India, notably from Nepal, Kashmir, Assam,
and Gujerat, which preserve lists of rulers. Historical biographies,
as noted above, constitute still another group of historical literature,
but possess a greater measure of literary quality than the putanas.
Among these works are the famous Harsha-charita, a prose work,
and a number of works in verse dealing with rulers in BengaI,
Gujerat, and the northern portions of the Deccan. From Buddhists
and Jains there are similar traditions preserved in the Jatakas, or
birth stories of Siddhartha, and the Prabhundns, or collections of
Jain stories which derive from earlier genealogical lore. And
finally, at a somewhat later period, one can include the lengthy
introductions of stone and metal inscriptions, prasa.his,6 which
often contain the best summaries of genealogical information avail-
able for rulers until quite late in the medieval period.
The iiih&u-pur&a literature and the other classes of literature
mentioned above are, at their best, vumsb, or genealogical lists for
ruling families. The consensus among scholars who have used this
material is that the useful genealogical information is frequently

5. For a good recent discussion qf epipraphical evidence, scc D. C. Sircar,

Indian Epigraphy, (Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass, 1965).

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 EARLY INDIAN HlSTORiOGRAPHY : A CONSPfRACY HYPOTHESIS 45
buried in myth and. hopeless exaggeration. In its nature this
literature is neither “objectivey’, nor accurately descriptive, nor
analytical. I t is the work of men who serve a ruler, or a religious
sect, whose concern is with reflecting and maintaining a sponsor’s
position. The partiality and narrow purposiveness of this class of
literature makes its utilization as historical material hazardous.
The one great and solitary exception to this characterization of
earlier Indian literature is the Kashmir Chronicle of Kalhana in the
12th century. This work has received impressive notice since the
late 19th century, and it continues to excite the admiration of
historians as may be seen from A. L. Basham’s essay in the Philip’s
. -
The Kashmir Chronicle, l&”utarangini, as Basham suggests, may
reflect some special conditions extant in’thai part of India at the time.
Among these conditions are propinquity t o Tibetans, Buddhists,
and even Chinese all of whom possessed a “stronger sense of
history” as Basham puts it, than Hindus. Moreover, it is quite
likely that Kalhana and other intellectuals of his day had some
familiarity with the Muslim chronicle tradition. As regards these
suggestions, which Basham offers tentatively, it may be pointed out
that, Tibetans apart, Hindus elsewhere in India were exposed to
Buddhists, Chinese and Muslim influences after the 12th century
without producing similar works.
Kalhana’s purpose in the Kashmir Chronicle is an explicit one :
to provide a connected account of what had become fragmentary.
He used extant chronicles, naming twelve in all ; he also used
inscriptions and oral traditions. Finally, he reports events to which
he was himself a witness. While there is much that is fanciful and
exaggerated in the work, including, for example, one ruler,
Ranaditya, who ruled for 300 years, Kalhana achieves much of his
expressed purpose of the Chronicle :to establish the true account
of kings and events in contrast to vague and conflicting tradition.
Moreover, Kalhana as chronicler is ever the pious Brahman, and
the work has a didactic and orthodox focus. His history comprehends

6. The essay i s entitled, “The Kashmu Chronicle,” pp. 57-66.

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 46 BURTON STEIN

almost the entire traditional era of the kaliyuga, that is from

about 3000 B:C., and his overall perception of the era is traditional
in the sense of framing his narrative within the context of progres-
sive moral degeneration and accepting the causal relevance of karma
and fate (vidhatr) or divine intervention.’
There can be little argument with Basham’s appreciation of the
Kashmir Chronicle as an excellent example of the m h & m ~ a
tradition, that is the utilization and collation of earlier genealogical
accounts by a writer seeking to present a continuous narrative
account of the past. But is the Kashmir Chronicle basically different
from the itihasa-purina tradition which most historians have dismis-
sed as almost without usefulness owing to the uncritical intrusion of
myth and legend in the genealogies forming its basis ?The answer, I
submit, is that there is no fundamental difference either in terms of
the “purpose” or the nature of the Kashrnir Chronicle and the
itihasa-purinas.
Professor N. Subrahrnanian of the University of Madras, has
raised the question of the “purpose” of the composers and trans-
mitters of puranas, purinikas. Subrahmanian argues against the
historicity of the ifihasa-puraks,saying that the puranika, like the
historical novelist of our day is concerned with delighting and
entertaining and hence permits fiction and fantasy to dominate
facts.8 I think that this is correct, but is this really very different
in Kalhana or Jain writers, of whom Subrahmanian approves,
whose didactic purpose is so conspicuous in theix accounts. I am
inclined to lump together the Kashmir Chronicle, the proseand
verse works on biogragphy, the Jain and Buddhist chronicles, the
itih&a-purakn, and other genealogical works as works which, with
varying success, represent historical explanations for certain con-
ditions in the world of the ancient Indian. These works may be (in
fact they are) unconvincing, but they are historical. In this connec-

7. Ibid., p. 64.
S. Bullefinof the Institute of Traditional Cultures, op. cit,, p. 259.

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 EARLY INDIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY : A CONSPIRACY HYPOTHESIS 47
tion it seems well to bear in mind that history, as that term has
been understood in the recent past, that is “scientific” or “objective”
history is everywhere in the world a relatively recent development,
What passes as history, of literature produced before the 19th
century, is often not interesting to us as valid historical explanation,
but rather as historical material which with other kinds of evidence
forms the source for the contemporary historian. I am saying, in
other words, that there was a historiographical tradition in ancient
India ; hence I agree with the assertion of Philip’s to which 1 have
referred above. However, I would insist that this historiographical
tradition was one of very poor quality. In our present understand-
ing of things historical, where scientific or objective history dares
only from the 19th century (and is not even now everywhere the
model), we may and we do distinguish “po~or” history from “no”
history. We must agree with Keith’s assessment that there was a
historiographical tradition in ancient and medieval India, but that
it was impoverished both in quantity and q ~ a l i t y . ~I further sub-
mit that where we can identify a relatively good chronicle, such as
the Kashmir Chronicle of Kalhana, it is a mistake to say, as R. C.
Majumdar has said, that it is an “accident” that more men like
Kalhana did not produce more of the same relatively high quality
work. I would say that it is much more an “accident” that we have
the Kalhana chronicle when we consider some of the problems
which may have prevented the writing and preservation of good
chronicles.
When I refer to the problems which may have inhibited the
writing and/or preservation of good historical literature in ancient
and medieval India, I do not refer to deficiencies in the processes of
Indian thought. I deny that the ancient Indian intellectual tradition
was “spiritual” to such a degree as to preclude systematic concern
with India’s changing cultures and institutions. Such obviously
“secular” concerns are abundantly expressed in the great Dhrm-
&&as as well as the regional ones of the medieval period. They
are also addressed in the smriti literature and in the ;gamic litera-

9. A. B. Keith, A History of Sanskrit Literature. (Oxford :Clarendon Press,

1928), p. 144.

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 48 BURTON STEIN

ture of medieval Hindu sects as well. I cannot take seriously

the argument that the “Indian mind” which conceived the
idea of the muhayuga was necessarily dominated by an ethereal
orientation with a peculiar emphasis upon “spatial” over “temporal”
relationship^.'^ The cyclic rnahiyuga idea is often cited to support
such assertions. According to this conception, human society
passes in a cosmically determined fashion through four stages of
diminishing general morality until in the final stages, the kalipga,
there is a complete destruction of man and his universe and a new
and pure beginning made. The mahiyuga conception may be viewed
in a variety of ways which do not require a peculiar Indian mind,
unable to preceive temporal relations. Other civilizations as diverse
as China and Greece held cyclical theories of cosmic change with-
out being temporal, and the mahayuga idea should be viewed more
narrowly as a poetic means for eIaborating the personalities of the
great puranic deities Siva and Vishnu rather than as a symptom of
the problem with time for the early Indian intellectual.
What then are the problems or conditions in early Indian society
and culture which inhibited, indeed, all but prevented the writing
and preservation of good chronicles or histories ? I would say that
there were three important inhibiting eIements : (1) the nature of
the political system ;(2) the role of the priestly elite as stewards of
Indian tradition ;and (3) related to priestly stewardship, the nature
of the transmission of tradition.
Views of the political system of early India have been undergoing
important changes in recent years. Until quite recently, it has been
the tendency of Indians who study their own history to vastly
exaggerate the power and the administrative and military effective-
ness of early Indian states. Good examples of recent scholarship
which correct the older view of the power of the ancient Indian
state and the degree of integration which forrnai political institu-
tions allegedly contributed to early Indian society are R.S.Sharma’s
monographic Indian Feudalism, and Romila Thapar’s general, A

10. A. de Riencourt, The Soul of Indin, (New York : Harper and Brothers, 1960)
good example of this ;the writings of C. G. Jung exhibit the same
PP. 106 ff. i s a
quality.

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 EARLY INDIAN HfSTORIOGRAPHY : A CONSPIRACY HYPOTHBSIS 49
History oflndia.’l Nevertheless, one encounters, even as recently
as 1960, in the important two volume work edited by G. Yazdani,
The Early Histoiy of the DeccatP, a work which attributes to
medieval kingdoms of the Deccan a degree of overall royal power
and centralized, bureaucratic control which cannot be supported by
the evidence and borders on fantasy at times.
It is as incorrect, however, to go the opposite extreme of denying
that ancient and medieval Indian society was affected by the political
system. Thus, N. Subrahmanian has stated :

History has been mainly political history . , and ..

early societies, if they were so inclined, could have
written political histories of a sort e.g., “Thucidides,
Caesar” ... However political history . gains ..
significance only in a society which is politically
minded ; Indian (Hindu) society which is largely non-
political in character, i.e., a society which is mini,mally
influenced by the political fortunes of the state, there-
fore, could not interest itself in rearing a tradition of
political his tory.”

Underlying such a proposition is the quite proper identification

of other areas of society and culture which provided greater inte-
gration and continuity to Indian life than the political system as a
“state”. But the idea that early Indian society was %on-political”
is, to my mind, a quite incredible formulation. I grant that this
formulation provides for one who holds it a partial explanation for
why there was no strong chronicle or historical tradition in India,
the argument being that there was little concern with formal political
institutions and political power, thus there was never developed a
body of inquiry into the nature and evolution of such things. Such
a view, however, fails completely to deal with the organization of

11. Indian Feudalism. (Calcutta :University of Calcutta, 1965) ; A History of

I d h , vol. I, (Penguin Books, 1966).
12. G. Yazdani (ed.). The Early History ofthe Deccun,. 2 vpls. (London : Oxford
University Press, 1960). See the present author’s review In The Journal ofAdun
Studies, vol. 21, no. 3 (May, 1962). pp. 223-4.
13. Bulletin of the Institute oJ*Truditional Cultures, op. fit.. p. 256.

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50 BURTON STEIN

power which Indian society, like all societies, modern and ancient,
bad as one ofits tasks. Few of uscould envisage a society, any society,
which did not hzve some kind of political organization. Early India,
with its warriors and kings, its forts and capitals, its ministers, and
the niti literature which purports to deal with these things is certain-
ly not such a society. Neither the exaggerated importance of the
state and political institutions of alleged imperial scale which, as I
have said, represents the mainstream of conventional historical
scholarship, nor early India's presumed concern with individual
salvation and general morality, nor, finally, the integratively signi-
ficant functions of social and religious organizations-none of these
things should blind us to the nature of political system which
prevailed in early India.
An adequate analysis of the political system of early India does
not yet exist ; there are many aspects of this system which are very
imperfectly understood. Yet, I would offer the following few genera-
lizations pertaining to the political process of early India. First, it
is clear that society was highly localized in regard to its dominant
social arrangements, culture, and effectivegovernment. Large spatial
units of reasonably well integrated society, culture, and government
are rare until late in medieval times despite some rather heroic
historical reconstructions of great empires from Mauryan times to
the Mughal period. Second, even within the local political system
of early India, political power and functions were frequently and for
long periods vested in what cannot be called formal political institu-
tions. -4mong these were the village settlements oflocallyimportant
persons as Brahmans and respectable agricultural castes, great itine-
rant merchant associations, and other caste and professional assem-
blies. Political power and attendant political functions thus frag-
mented among essentially non-political institutions were in some
places and for brief periods significantly reduced under Muslim
rule, but the relatively autonomous power of numerous local
warriors throughout the subcontinent was not eliminated until the
nineteenth century and'the establishment of effective British control.
A third generalization which may be suggested bears significantly
upon my argument about the dearth of good chronicles and history
in early India. This is the relationship between the warrior ruler

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 EARLY INDIAN HISTORIOQRAPHY :A CONSPIRACY HYPOTHBSIS 51
and the priest. When I say priest, I refer primarily to the Hindu
priestly caste, the Brahman ; but I would also include Jain and
Buddhist monks who formed the sacerdotal elite i n many parts of
India during the ancient period. Jain and Buddhist leaders appear
not to have differed essentially from the Brahman in respet to their
relations with local warrior power.
Two factors in the relationship between priests and warriors
appear to be salient.

(a) Among the chief functions of the priestly elite relating to

political power was conferring legitimacy upon de fucto
power weilders. By associating themselves and their consider-
able prestige with the secularly powerful and by creating or
at least recognizing myths about the Kshatriya origins and
hence the appropriateness of the warrior with power, the
priests conferred de jure status.

(6) It is highly probable that a large proportion of India’s rulers,

among [hem the illustrious, came from social groups of low
ritual status and therefore the legitimating function of the
priest was not a marginal function, but a central one, with
respect to the stability of the Indian political system.

It is, of course, ironic that in early India, a civilization in which

the ascribed ritual rank o f a person or group was and continued to
be more important in determining status than in any other society
in the world, has probably been most often ruled by persons of the
lowest ranks of ritual purity. In this sense, Hindu society has
perhaps been relatively more free and open than we usually suppose
at least until (again an irony) the establishment of British power
which conferred special status upon the priestly elite as a literate
and hence useful administrative class. The incidence of this legiti-
mating process-in North and South India, in ancient times and
during the medieval period-is very strongly supported by a variety
of evidence. It is true that not all rulers of very low social origins
disguised their origins by claiming kshatriya status, for we have
inscriptions from South India in which local rulers refer to them-

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52 BURTON STEIN

selves as members of the fourth caste, Sudras.” Many of such

avowedly low caste, Sudra, rulers actually arose from lower orders
of society, tribal or what we would now call untouchable groups,
and Sudra rank for them was a significantly enhanced position.
However, most upwardly mobile rulers claimed proper knightly or
kshatriya rank, and when they do not, as in the case of avowed
sudra warriors, one is tempted to join an epigraphist who wondered
at why some South Indians, Reddy, warriors! (Sudras) did not
produce a fictional genealogy of high caste warrior^.'^ It is
also true that not all claims to proper warrior rank were legitimated
by priests since we have some evidence, again from South India, of
established warriors of low origins conferring the title of “member
of the Prince’s family (kum~ruvurkkam)upon subordinate and depen-
dent warriors.1’’
In general, however, legitimating and validating the social rank
pretensions of Indian warriors involved the activities of the priest.
The priest it was who could prepare a proper genealogy to be used
on inscriptions or preserved in family records; it was also the
priest who by officiating in mariages between newly emergent
warrior families and older, established ones-an important cere-
monial mark of arriving at a new, enhanced rank for the successful
warrior of low origins-conferred sacral recognition of the warrior’s
claimed rank. In addition to the genealogical and marriage func-
tions of priests, as these relate to legitimating a warrior’s claim to

14. Several instances of this can be cited in inscriptions from medieval Andhra :
Government of India, Archaeological Department, Southern Circle, Annual Report
on Epigraphy/A.R.E./lsO8, para 92, some Guntur cbiofs identified themselves as of
the ~lchaiurtha-kuIa,” 1128 A.D., ;A.R.E., 1915, para 59, 1311 A.D. ;A.R.E., 1917.
No. 172. 1268 A.D. ; Government of India, Archaeological Survey of India, South
Indian Inscripiions, vol. VI, No. 103, 1145 A.D.
15. A.R.E., 1900, para 56.
16. The following manuscripts prepared under the direction of Col. Colin
Mackenzie and housed a t the Oriental Manuscripts Library a t the University of
Madras may be cited ;with each citation there is provided the page number in H.H.
Wilson, The Mackenzie Collection ;A Descriptive Catalorue of the Oriental Manu-
.
scripts andorher Articles . .2nd ed. (Madras : 1882). “Awount of TerllmalaPonna-
ppa Nayaka of Virupaksam Palayappattu in Coimbatore Country,.’ Wilson, p. 420,
VI-3 : “Account of Debnik Poligar (Deva Nayaka) of Pollachi in Dbarapuram
District.” Wilson, P. 418. IV-6; “Account of Savaroy Balagovindcih Pallipr
(Subba Raya Valla Kondama Palle Nayak) of Mangslarn in the Dharapumm Dlst-
rict.” Wilson, P. 418, IV-11 ; Account of Nagaya Nayaka, Poligar of Periyapatti
in Dharapuram,” Wilson, p. 418, IV-11. Also see, Tamil Lexicon (Madras :Univer-
sity of Madras, 1936), p. 1005.

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 EARLY INDIAN HISTORI0T)RAPHY :A CONSPIRACY HYPOTHBSIS 53
higher rank, we should also notice even more direct priestly means
of legitimation. Hindu priests were ritual functionaries par excelfence
and one of the ritual ceremonies which was utilized to confer
enhanced rank upon a successful warrior of low origins was the
hiranyagarbha or Golden Womb ceremony. This ceremony has long
been recognized as one of the great gifts to which Brahmans were
entitled, and the ceremony is primarily a rebirth ritual for the
sponsor who was usually a wealthy and powerful warrior.17 We
discover in some South Indian and Deccan inscriptions reference to
this rebirth ceremony in which an Indian warrior traces his descent
from an ancestor thus “born”.18 This pattern of legitimating
activity is as evident among many Rajput and Chchatri families of
Northern India as among the numerous “ppoligar” and Raja families
of South India during medieval times.I9
I t is my contention that this political system which required the
fictionalizing of warriors’ social origins by priests of a locaIity in
order to provide low status, powerful men with credentials to
correspond with their actual power worked against the existence of
what we would understand as good chronicles or histories of ruling
families. Accurate history of many of the great ruling families of
early India would have exposed the low origins of the founders of
the families (as Chinese dynastic histories often do) thus embarras-
ing the descendants of the founders and priests who participated
in their power.
The second condition or problem in early Indian society which,
I believe, inhibited the writing and preservation of good chronicles
or histories was the nature of the stewardship of Brahmans over
Indian cultural traditions. This point may be viewed as a more

17. D. D. Kosambi, “The Basis of Ancient Indian History,” Journal of the

AKerican Oriental Society, vol. 75, no. 1 (January 1955), p. 41.
18. The title was claimed by Rajaraja-Chola I according to K. A. Nilakanta
Sastri, The CT!as. (Madras :Universityof Madras, 1955), p. 186; it is mentioned
by D. C. Sircar in work on the Guhila Rajputs, The Guhilas of Kiskindhz Calcutta :
Sanskrit College, 1965 ;(Calcutta Sanskrit College Research Series, no. 34). p. 15.
19. See, for example, W. Crooke, Natives of Northern India. (London : 1907),
pp. 88 ff.

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 54 BURTON STEIN

generalized case ,of the significance of Brahman activities in the

political system, but it requires separate discussion.
Of the -various elements which have historically integrated the
diversity of Indian society and culture, those associated with the
Brahman priestly elite have been the most important. As stated by
Professor Daniel Ingalls in a recent essay :

... there is a wide area where it is impossible to set a

boundary between Brahman culture and the general
culture of India.*O
The Brahman’s sacred language, Sanskrit, was the only all-India
language until the establishment of English ; everywhere there has
been some form of Hinduism in which the Brahman was the para-
mount functionary ;everywhere there has been the caste structure
in all of its differentiated forms, but in d l forms the Brahman has
been accorded the highest rank. In short, the Great Tradition of
India is that which has been maintained and transmitted by the
Brahman. He has been the steward of that tradition. It has become
increasingly clear that the stewardship of the Brahman was sustain-
ed through their ability to assimilate and accommodate to the
Great Tradition such elements of local or regional culture whose
inclusion in the mainstream of honored and carefully transmitted
culture contributed strength. Here it is of crucial importance to
recognize that the Brahman did not exist as an agent apart from
these local traditions and institutions, but was an integrated and
prestigeful member of local society. His role in the complex and
continuous process of synthesizing local and universal cultural
elements upon which the maintenance and transmission of Indian
culture depended was a vital one. And what appeared to be sought
by the Brahman maintainer and transmitter was a particular kind
of dharmic society and culture. It matters not whether Brahmans
were motivated by selfish, power-maximizing ends or by the pursuit
of the best society and cultureconsistent with the quest for salvation.
It must have mattered considerably to the Brahman, however, that

20. “The Brahman Tradition,” in Milton Singer (ed.), Traditional India : Sfruc-
lure and Change, special number of the Journal o/ Americon Folklore, vol. 71, (July,
1958), p. 209.

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 EARLY INDIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY : A CONSPIRACY HYPOTHESIS 55
this synthetic process be not revealed through an examination of
its workings, its principles, and its goals.
I suggest; therefore, that most areas of human conduct and
behavior extending over what we would call social history, very
broadly conceived, would not be voluntarily subjected to the public
examination of history by Brahmans. Where we are permitted
glimpses of this synthetic process in operation, as in the wealth
of stone and metal inscriptions, we are offered evidence which is so
scattered in time and space as to make a developmental pattern
very difficult to establish. The early Indian social arbiter, usually a
Brahman, did not conveniently organize and codify these discrete
particles of evidence within the framework of his own time and
place. Rather, social regulations were expressed as extremely
general rules, as in most smriti, the aggregative effect of which was
to reinforce a body of values for an ideal society, not to adjudicate
conflicts in a real social system.
Nor was there ever a significant enough challenge to the
Brahmans’ function as social arbiters or cultural custodians to force
an examination of the development of Indian society and culture by
way of self-justification until very recent times. Earlier, I suggested
that there appears to have been little essential difference between
the Brahman priestly elite and the Jain and Buddhist monks who at
various times and places in early India achieved something like the
same degree of social and religious power. The same thing may
certainly be said for the political roles of these heterodox leaders.
Essentially, they strove for and often achieved the same degree of
functional integration within the local social and political systems
where they resided as did the Brahman. They too came to terms
with Indian society and culture as a price of maintaining prestigeful
social positions. The intrusion of Muslim power into India threaten-
ed the maintenance of Hindu society and the status of both Hindu
warriors and priests, as well as other groups, yet this challenge
served more to bolster existing traditional arrangements than to
weaken them. The challenge of European civilization through the
political control of British power and the attraction of many Indian
intellectuals to European values was the first successful attack upon
the remarkably effective Brahman stewardship. Beginning with
people like Raja Ram Mohan Roy there was an examination of the

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56 BURTON STEIN

development and nature of some aspects of Hindu society and the

emergence of a quality of social criticism and analysis whictl, though
imperfecdy, permits us to better understand eighteenth century
India if not the preceding centuries.
The third condition in early Indian Society which I believe milita-
ted against the writing and preservation of good chronicle or histori-
cal works has to do with the way in which tradition was transmitted
to successive generations of Indians. To speak of the transmission
of tradition is, in a sense, a solecism, I am aware. Yet very few
historians have used the concept of tradition with much reflection.
This is surprising, it seems to me, for the tool bag of the historian
is, generally speaking, never overcrowded with conceptual tools,
and the concept of tradition, with its central focus on time, is
a concept which should be rescued fromsthe folklorist and at least
clarified, if not utilized, by historians. Among historians who used
the concept of tradition was Professor Frederick Teggart. Teggart
emphasized the fact that tradition, properly conceived, is an acti-
vity, a social process, the primary objective of which is to assure
that valued ideas and techniques of a society are transmitted
through tirne.*l
Every society establishes the means by which valued ideas and
ways of doing things are transmitted to successive generations.
And, while it is true that such transmission is continuous and
involves all social groups from the low to the high, it is well recog-
nized that one of the significant elements in the character of Indian
civilization of earlier times was the special place of the priestly elite
in the transmission process. It was with and through these leaders
of local and regional society and culture that the most valued
elements of the culture were transmitted to successive generations.
In this connection, it seems appropriate to suggest that the ifih;;sa-
purunu class of Sanskrit literature, mentioned above as the largest
single class of Sanskrit literature and also the class of literature to
which the greatest historical importance has been attached, occu-
pied a relatively low order of appreciation until a late date

21. Frederick J. Teggert, The Theory and Process o/Hisrory. (Berkeley : Univer-
sity of California Press, 1%1), pp. 190-91.

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 EARLY INDIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY :A CONSPIRACY HYPOrHESIS 57
in ancient Indian history. One reflection of this was the traditional
attribution of authorship of these works to groups such as. Sizas
and Migadhas, men of somewhat debased caste, the offspring of an
illicit union between a Brahman mother and a warrior father.**Such
persons would have tainted these works in the minds of the ortho-
dox and the followers of orthodoxy. By the eighth century, when
the puranas had become an important source of orthodox values,
these lower caste men had ceased to be associated with these texts.
My point here is that lo the extent that the irih%a-pur&u works
may be identified as an element of tradition which was passed over
many genarations, it did not rank with other classes of knowledge,
and one indication of its differentially lower status was that the
purznas were the work of lower caste men, not Brahmans.
In fact, early India provides an almost unique example of what I
would call conrrolled transmission of tradition. There are two reasons
for this assertion. First, the most valued knowledge of early India
was passed from person to person orally. The transmission nexus
was, in ths main, confined to the relationship between a learned
man, guru, and such students as he would carefully select not only
to learn from him but to reside with him as would a son. Second,
therefore, access to important knowledge rigorously excluded any
but those who by the ritual purity of their birth group (jsi) were
regarded as eligible. Under these circumstances of controlled trans-
mission, it was possible for the Brahman to discourage the explora-
tion of certain fields of knowledge and, if discouragement did not
suffice, they could elect not to transmit such knowledge whether of
Brahmans of others. History, for the reasons I have suggested
above, may have been one such field of knowledge.
The transmission of valued knowledge is the life blood of a living
civilization, and, every civilization develops ways of filtering out
certain elements of knowledge which may be seen as injurious

22. These are listed among the pratiloma castes in Yajnovalkya Smriii with rhe
Commentary of Vijnone&ra called the mitaksara and Notes from the Gloss of
B'hmbhatra. Translated by S. C. Vidyaraava. (SacredBooks of the Hindus, vol.
21, Allahabad, 1918). pp. 196-97.

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58 BURTON STEIN

to the civilization by its leaders. This screening process may explain

the fate of historical ballads and chronicles which some scholars
(e.g., Vincent Smithyzs)and statesmen (e.g., Surendranath Banerji)
believe were produced but failed to survive. In our era of mass
printing and publishing, it is difficult to imagine the successful
control, through repression, of the traditions of a people. Yet all
of us are aware of relatively impressive programs of this sort
in Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia. And even in modern
democratic India with its essentially benign government, there WBS
an order issued by the Madras Director of Public Instruction a few
years ago that syllabi and text books in Indian history should avoid
material which may lead to social or communal conflict. Here,
then, is a kind of “culture-losing” which may exist in every civiliza-
tion at all times, but conspicuously,.I am arguing, did it exist
in early India with its highly controlled transmission.
I have argued here that early India failed to produce and/or to
preserve a chronicle or historical tradition of even modest quality
despite the richness and scope of its early intellectual development
for three reasons :

(1) A political system based upon the surreptitious fictiona-

lizing of the social rank of its low caste warrior leaders
by the priestly elite ;
(2) That this same priestly elite was constantly involvedin an
even more comprehensive and still covert synthesis of
important local, regional, and all-India values, customs,
and ways of doing things ;
(3) And that through their control over the processes of
transmission, scrutiny of these disguised efforts were not
passed to successive generations, if, indeed, they were
ever undertaken in an appreciable number.

This argument is offered tentatively and the evidence which I have

given in support is certainly modest. Moreover, I have offered a
conspiracy hypothesis which requires even more formidable evi-
dence than is usually the case with historical explanations. I do not

23. The Oxford Risrory ofIndia. (Oxford :Clarendon Press, 196l),pp. 14-15.

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 EARLY INDIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY :A CONSPIRACY HYPOTHESIS 59

have such evidence, nor do I intend to search for it, for it is not in
in the area of my essential research interests. But, as an historian
of India, I am bound to be intrigued by the question of early India’s
deficient historiographical tradition, and as a reasonable person I
am bound to be somewhat offended by the nature of explanations
which have been offered to this time. I find such explanations as
the excessively spiritual nature of the Indian mind or the accidental
loss of historical works unacceptable, and these explanations are
supported by evidence no better than my admittedly poor evidence.
Moreover, these other explanations cannot be proven whereas my
suggestion of conspiracy, that is the deliberate discouragement of
good chronicle or history writing and its repression through failure
of transmission, may be supported or controverted by the existing
literature.
Finally, I am very much aware that many of the propositions
I have advanced are subject to challenge. This does not dismay
me, for I think that they may be propositions worthy of serious
and scholarly attention not so much for what we might learn about
why there was no important historical work in early India, but for
what we might learn about the organization and functioning of
early Indian society and culture.

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